


Games We Don't Play

by igrockspock



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-09 23:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Joan solves a murder, goes on an unexpected date, outwits Sherlock, and survives his highly questionable attempts at emotional support.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Games We Don't Play

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kateandbarrel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateandbarrel/gifts).



The front door creaks open under Joan’s light touch; the scuff marks on the door frame are consistent with forced entry. Or an angry Sherlock with a crowbar, Joan thinks. They hadn’t had a case in nearly two weeks; she wouldn’t put it past Sherlock to take out his frustration on an innocent doorway. Inside the brownstone is an even bigger mess: vases smashed, books scattered across the floor, Sherlock’s precious grid of locks overturned. 

“Sherlock?” Joan calls tentatively, her fingers curling around the canister of Mace in her purse. “I came as soon as I saw your message.”

Well, within an hour of receiving his message anyway. She surveys the destruction in the living room and presses down a surge of guilt; she had thought ‘SOS’ meant ‘come relieve me of my boredom.' Now she wonders if it had been a genuine distress call.

She picks her way across the debris on the floor, plucks the security camera off the bookshelf, and plugs it into the computer with one hand while she dials the police with the other. One look at the video footage, and she’s out; she knows better than to linger when the intruder still might be in the house. The computer screen fills with gray and white static. Sherlock had been taken by someone who knew about the surveillance cameras, then. Or –

“There’s more than one way to find someone,” Joan mutters, hanging up before the police answer her call. She slams her iPhone into the speaker dock and ratchets NSYNC up to full volume. “Bye Bye Bye” isn’t exactly her taste, but her Carrie had put it on a mix CD after a bad breakup, and she'd kept it for sentimental reasons. Anyway, she knows someone who will find the song even more annoying than she does.

She snatches a pair of rubber gloves from Sherlock’s tattoo supplies and snaps them on; she’s wanted to make a thorough search of the flat since Sherlock had revealed his hidden collection of video cameras and torture implements. An hour later, her meager collection of late nineties pop music is spent, but a Pandora station is filling in. On the table is a pile of her booty: 1,146 U.S. dollars, forty-two British pounds, and six crumbling Egyptian notes of indeterminate value. Next to them, she’s piled an array of telescopes and binoculars, some truly creative pornography, and five inexplicable glockenspiels. But there is still no sign of Sherlock. 

No matter. She dons a gas mask she’d found in the closet, opens the refrigerator, and seizes the tray of fuzzy Tupperware from the bottom shelf. At that moment, Sherlock tumbles out from behind the living room bookshelves, rubbing a crick in his neck.

“I was saving that mold!” he bellows.

Joan pulls down her mask. “And _I_ was waiting for a chance to throw it away.” The tray falls into the trash can with a satisfying thunk. “This is not an experiment, Sherlock. It’s a health hazard, and it’s probably sentient.” She shudders a little and cinches the garbage bag shut.

"You were supposed to be looking for me," Sherlock says. "A test of your detective skills in the absence of a real case."

"And I found you. Once I deduced that you were still in the apartment, it was a simple matter of annoying you until you came out. And I got to throw away your mold." 

"And how, pray tell, did you deduce my presence here?"

Sherlock looks wounded, and Joan tries not to enjoy it too much. 

She ticks off the clues on her fingers. "No case, no motive for kidnapping you. No blood, no one took you anywhere. Blank tapes, so you set it up, which means you had some lesson to teach me -- probably about how people and things can hide in plain sight -- which means you were here. Then I figured it was just a matter of annoying you until you came out of hiding." Joan grabs the broom from the corner of the kitchen and hands it to Sherlock. " _You_ get to clean up the living room. _I_ am taking a hot bath."

"Judging from the flare of your nostrils, you are angry, no doubt because I underestimated you. I apologize." 

Joan narrows her eyes. "That's not why I'm angry, Sherlock. Frightening me is not an acceptable way to teach me detective work. Throwing things at me, fake ambushes, pretending to disappear -- that all stops today. I can't work with you if I have to guess whether we're really in danger. 

She doesn't wait for a response, just goes upstairs to the bathroom and wedges a chair underneath the door knob. When Sherlock doesn't attempt to break in and lecture her on handwriting analysis or the two hundred and forty-three types of tobacco ash, Joan knows that she'll find him sitting beside her bed the next morning. That does not prevent her from emitting a small, startled gasp when she awakens to find him staring at he 

"You are right, Joan, as usual," he says without preamble. "I apologize for making you believe that I was in danger when I was not. It is detrimental to the trust in our relationship and potentially dangerous as well. " He throws a shirt at her and bolts out of his chair. "Now get up. You have a case." 

" _I_ have a case?" Joan asks, fumbling with the shirt. "Don't you mean _we_ have a case?" 

"I do not. I underestimated you last night, and I will not do so again. You are ready, and Detective Bell is awaiting you at the murder scene 

__

***

If Bell is disappointed not to have Sherlock's help, he doesn't show it.

"Victim's name is Larisa Abrams. 24-year-old CUNY student. Jogger found her this morning. Cell phone's still in her pocket, two credit cards and some cash in her wallet," he says, which answers almost every question Joan would think to ask.

"Have you spoken with the family?" Joan says, not quite sure what to do with herself. The crime scene is a blank sidewalk, and the bullet wound is unremarkable.

"NYPD reached the mother this morning. Said her daughter doesn't date a lot, no bad break-ups in the recent past. No known enemies either, but we'll go through her email just to be sure."

"Could a drug dealer have done this? To make an example of her, maybe?" Joan asks, thinking of a former client who had been beaten half to death just to prove a point. 

Bell had probably seen cases like that too, Joan thinks, but he nods anyway. "We'll run a tox screen and let you know the results this afternoon."

Joan leaves the crime scene and wanders aimlessly through the Village, unwilling to face Sherlock until she has a solid lead. Money wasn't the motive, obviously, and the victim didn't have any scratches or bruises to suggest she'd put up a fight. The bullet wound was consistent with a long-range shot, so they were probably looking for a skilled shooter. A revenge killing? Joan wondered. But for what?

By the time she meets Carrie for a drink at happy hour, Joan's traipsed around the Village, the Lower East Side, and Staten Island without a single clue.

"I don't get it," she says. "The girl was well-liked, her tox screen was clean, and none of her emails, text messages, or phone records show the slightest hint of some secret double life. There's no motive. None." She takes a bigger gulp of her martini than she intends. "I must be missing something, but I don't know what."

"Well, what if you're not missing anything?" Carrie asks. "What if there _wasn't_ a motive?"

Joan goes cold. "You mean they did it for the fun of it? Like a sniper or a serial killer? I've got to talk to Sherlock."

She's halfway finished with the text message when she stops, remembering an old adage from med school. "No. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. An accident, maybe, or a stray bullet from somewhere else?"

She erases the message to Sherlock and texts Detective Bell instead: _any shots fired within a mile of the crime scene between midnight and five a.m.?_

By the time she looks up, Carrie's finished her drink and laid a few bills on the table. "Don't apologize, Joan. This is important. We'll catch up when you're done."

***

Joan returns to the brownstone at seven p.m., almost twelve hours after she left.

"I did it," she calls. "I solved the case."

"Ah yes." Sherlock looks up from rearranging his lock collection. "Stray bullet from a bad drug deal five blocks away, yes? Terribly tragic, freak accident, wrong place at the wrong time."

"You knew when you sent me." It's not a question.

"I surmised as much. Don't be too hard on yourself, Watson. You'll get faster with a bit of practice."

Joan throws her bag on the floor; she can't bring herself to be tidy tonight. "It's been a long day. I think I'll turn in early."

She'd solved the case; she should be happy. Instead she barely sleeps that night, or the one after.

***

When she stumbles downstairs bleary-eyed, Sherlock presents her with a crumpled piece of paper.

"Venti mocha frappucino," she reads. "What's this?"

"It is my Starbuck's order. Since the weather has improved, I shall no longer need you to collect my sweaters from the dry cleaners. Therefore, I have amended our roommate arrangement, and I would like you to pick up my daily Starbuck's order at ten a.m.," Sherlock says as matter-of-factly as someone else might have said the sky is blue.

"Okay, one, you don't drink Starbucks and two, daily Starbucks trips are pretty different from a weekly visit to the dry cleaners."

"I am an addict, Watson, as you are aware, and I have found that regular consumption of an innocuous substance improves my sobriety." He hands her a ten dollar bill. "As a gesture of my gratitude, I will provide you with funding for the subway and something extra for a drink of your own."

"Subway fare? There's a Starbucks three blocks away."

"Ah yes, however, I prefer the Starbuck's across from the police station. Erin, the barista, has perfectly calibrated the ratio of ice cubes to coffee."

Joan shoves the money into her pocket and sighs ostentatiously. Maybe the walk to the subway station will clear her head, and god knows she could use a coffee.

She must have gotten even less sleep than she thought because she bumps into Detective Bell on her way into Starbucks. Three coffees fly out of the take-out try in his hands.

"I am so sorry," she says, fumbling for her wallet. "Just let me go inside and replace those. I'll only be a minute."

"Not necessary." He rescues one of the cups from the floor. "See? Didn't even spill. I'll just give these to the officers I _don't_ like."

Joan smiles wryly. "Long night last night?" she asks, gesturing at the six coffees on the tray.

"That sounds better than admitting we have a coffee problem." He replaces the last coffee on the tray and leans against the door. "That was good work you did on the Abrams case this week, Ms. Watson."

"Joan. Please."

"Well, that was good work you did, Joan. Welcome to the team."

***

The fourth time she runs into Detective Bell -- Marcus, now -- she asks, "Do you think this Starbucks could be nefarious in some way?"

Marcus squints at the counter. "Looks like a pretty ordinary coffee shop to me. You see something I don't?"

Joan shakes her head. "No. It's just the last time Sherlock insisted I run an errand for him, it turned out to be a dry cleaners fronting for the Russian mafia. He claims this Starbucks has the best frappuccinos, but I wondered if he had an ulterior motive."

"You want my advice, go to the Starbucks on your street and see if he notices a difference."

***

Joan slams the door harder than she means to, and Sherlock looks up from his tattoo gun, aggrieved.

"Are you trying to set me up with Detective Bell?" she asks. "No, wait, let me rephrase that: I know you're trying to set me up with Detective Bell, so why?"

"I merely thought you might enjoy one another's company."

"No you didn't."

"Well, if you insist on vulgarity, I was trying to get you laid. You have been rather irritable of late, and as I have previously explained, the length of a woman's stride indicates the length of time since her last orgasm --"

Joan tries to breathe calmly, like her yoga instructor taught her. "And you thought that if I ran into someone at Starbucks a couple times I'd ask him to fuck me?"

"Certainly not, Watson. I was not implying that you are a woman of easy virtue. Merely that Detective Bell is not an unattractive man, and I have observed a certain quickening of your respirations in his presence. I thought perhaps if you could meet outside the rather macabre environs of a crime scene --"

The yoga breathing isn't working. "That was _completely_ inappropriate. I am a grown woman, and if I want to have sex, I am quite capable of finding it on my own."

"Quite right, Watson. I can see now how misguided I was. Allow me to make it up to you. Tavolo. Seven o'clock tonight. My treat."

Joan narrows her eyes. "That's very...accountable of you, Sherlock."

"Perhaps some of the rhetoric from those meetings has rubbed off on me at last. Is it a date?"

Joan uncrosses her arms, feeling slightly mollified. "I will be ordering one of everything from the dessert cart."

"Very well." Sherlock picks up his tattoo gun again. "You left your phone on the kitchen counter this morning, by the way."

***

Joan probably should have known something was wrong when Sherlock disappeared at four, promising to meet her at the restaurant by seven. To be fair, she'd been a little distracted by her efforts to stop Siri speaking Urdu, but she really shouldn't have been so surprised when Marcus Bell slid into the seat across from her.

Joan buries her face in her hands. "I'm sorry. This is the most awkward thing that's ever happened to me."

"I don't see what's awkward about it. It's the twenty-first century. An attractive woman can invite a man she likes out to dinner." Marcus pauses, watching the blush spread across Joan's face. "Am I missing something here?"

Joan clears her throat. Honesty is the best way to resolve an embarrassing situation -- hadn't she told her clients that before? "I didn't invite you here. Apparently Sherlock believes that I need more of a life outside my work, and he stole my phone this morning."

"Oh." Joan wishes that Marcus didn't look so hurt. He stands up from the table. "Well, this _is_ awkward. I'll just leave you to enjoy your dinner in peace."

Joan reaches across the table and lays a hand on his arm. "No. Please stay. Buying you dinner is the least I can do." She brightens. "And we can plot some very elaborate revenge."

Marcus sits down again. "Yes to the dinner, no to the revenge."

Joan narrows her eyes. "You don't want to get at least a little bit even? I didn't figure you for the saintly type."

"Not a saint, just an opportunitist," Marcus says. "It's not every day I get to have dinner with an attractive, intelligent woman. If I do, I'm not going to spend the evening talking about her roommate."

***

Joan walks home all the way from Tavolo, feeling light headed from the wine and, okay, from the conversation. Sherlock had been right; she needed to get out. But that doesn't mean what he'd done was acceptable. With one hand, she reaches behind her and pulls down her pony tail; Sherlock was the one who'd pointed out she puts up her hair when she wants to look her best, and he doesn't need to see that she'd gone to the bathroom and styled it halfway through the evening.  
Sherlock is waiting for her in the foyer. "It is now ten fifty-four. I calculate that even though you walked home, you and Detective Bell conversed for at least three hours and twelve minutes. The evening was a success, then."

"Detective Bell and I were able to salvage an enjoyable evening from an awkward and embarrassing situation. Mature, rational adults are able to do things like that. Mature, rational adults do _not_ set their friends up on dates without their consent. Why would you do something like that?" 

Joan stares at Sherlock, one hand on her hip. He does not look even the slightest bit abashed.

"As it happens, the plan was already set into motion before you communicated your dissatisfaction this morning. I took your phone before you left and texted Detective Bell five minutes after I estimated your Starbucks rendezvous was complete. I then reprogrammed you phone to speak Urdu so that you would believe you had encountered my annoying behavior of the day. It is quite elegant, however, I can see you need more time to appreciate my efforts."

Sherlock plucks a monograph from a disorderly pile next to the stairs, settles himself in a chair, and begins to read, ignoring Joan standing over him.

Joan snatches the papers from his hand. "My life is not something for you to manipulate according to your whims. I don't know if your intentions were good or if you were just trying to entertain yourself, but either way you embarrassed me and hurt Detective Bell."

Sherlock reaches for another journal on the floor, but Joan slams her boot heel down on it. "I'm not leaving until you answer me."

"Did I hurt you, or only Detective Bell?" he says at length.

"You hurt me," Joan says, making him hold her eye. "I trust you, and you violated my trust."

"I see. Then I am sorry." Sherlock's voice is very quiet. "If it is any consolation, I was not merely attempting to get you laid. I observed that you have been...discontent since your last case. As I lack your facility with emotion, I attempted to supply a more suitable companion. Evidently a chance encounter at a coffee shop was inadequate to spark a conversation, so I attempted to create an environment more conducive to sustained interaction."

"Oh." Joan flops down on the couch, her anger suddenly spent. "You know, you could have just asked me how I felt. Not that I really know the answer."

"You don't?" Sherlock asks.

"No. Do you?" Joan finds it difficult to look at Sherlock. She can't judge his discomfort with emotion; for all her rhetoric about openness and honesty, she runs from her feelings more often than she'd like to admit.

"You were a surgeon and a sobriety counselor," Sherlock says. "You like to fix things. You view criminal investigation as a method of remedying injustice and providing closure to the families of victims. In this case, the senselessness of the crime provided no intellectual satisfaction, no comfort to the family, and as the perpetrator had already been charged with murder, there is little justice to be done. It is human and understandable to be upset by the random injustices of the universe."

Anyone else would have missed the uncertainty in Sherlock's eyes, but Joan can see it. He's trying to do right by her, and afraid he will fail.

"That's good analysis," Joan says. She'll have to make an appointment with her therapist in the morning. "Any idea what I should do about it?"

"None whatsoever," Sherlock replies, a faint smile curling around the edges of his lips. "However, I have recorded several baseball games you overlooked during your investigation. If you would like, I would be willing to watch one of them."

"Bet you can't predict the score," Joan says, curling into the couch's fluffy cushions.

She falls asleep easily for the first time in six days. When Marcus texts to ask if she'd like to see a Mets game next week, she says yes.


End file.
